How can I feed my kids?

[Larsz]

Sorry for the bait-y title. Just needing suggestions.

I have a surgery coming up very soon on my right arm. I will not be able to properly cook for a while. I’ve meal prepped some casseroles in advance but our freezer is quite small.

I am a single mum and will struggle to cook without my dominant hand. I really don’t want to use the hob as I fear I would not really be much good if anything went wrong and I needed to act.

Please can you suggest things I can pop in my air fryer for meals.

So far I have got:

kievs
frozen fish
fresh soup (carton)
fishcakes
gyoza
jackets
sausages
frozen pizza as a treat
beans on toast

will serve with salad, microwaveable sides/veg

If I buy weekly freezer space shouldn’t be an issue

I want to feed my kids so don’t mind leaning on upf right now. But would love to know what aren’t the worst options.

I do have friends and a sister who will drop off meals here and there. But I do like being self reliant.

Kids are 5 and 6 so can’t really help

How much can you afford? If you can throw your wallet at the problem, cookfood.net do really nice frozen meals. You could order a week at a time so there wouldn’t be the storage issues of prepping the lot yourself.

When my mum broke her collarbone, she struggled with opening jars and tins. Depending on what your surgery is, might be worth avoiding them (or getting someone to come round and open stuff then keep in fridge until needed later in the day)

Aldi does a lot of pre-prepped veg in the fresh veg aisle- chopped onions, prepared beans, broccoli, cauliflower etc. As well as various stir fry mixes/ Mediterranean veg trays etc so they could come in useful if you find yourself craving fresh veg! You could pop the Mediterranean veg in the air fryer with some chicken breast pieces or fish

I was going to suggest looking at kitchen aids to see what one handed/automatic jar and tin openers are available.

now, before your operation, get a few freezer bags.. dice onions.. dice celery.. finely slice peppers or dice,, dice some carrots.. and freeze them all.. drop the bags on the floor (lol..like I do) to loosen some up.. and you have all your veg for pretty much any slow cooker meal. Also try to find some beans and lentils with pull rings so you do not have to try to use a can opener. jacket potatoes in the crockpot all wrapped in foil.. baked beans in the micro to top with some cheese. Also do a bunch of rice and freeze into portions. can top with anything made in crock-pot. you can also make pasta, drop into icebath. when cold portion and freeze. You got this. Just need to make sure you don't use that arm! also, if money is not an issue, takeaway (or oven) pizza is your friend

I had surgery on my dominant hand just before Christmas last year. You have my sympathy...

Kids are really quiet good at doing things with encouragement & supervision. Get them doing things before you go in for surgery. Washing up, opening tins, cracking eggs, chopping easy things (mushrooms and bananas are good to start on)

The other thing I found was how much I could do with my non dominant hand.

Pre chopped frozen vegetables are surprisingly good.

A micro food processor is really useful.

Beans on toast is almost nutritionally balanced

I’ve got frozen sliced red onion, peppers, mushrooms, grilled Mediterranean veg and stew veg in my freezer for emergencies. You don’t need to chop.

Jacket potatoes can be done in air fryer. I would be packet rice, couscous. Even frozen veggies and pieces of frozen cooked chicken. Good old bread and butter with meat/ ready grated cheese and bag of baby cucumbers/carrot and cherry tomatoes.
Would your children like budda bowls?
Frozen veg is great and salad and grated carrots and cheese are brilliant.

If you treat yourself to an Ocado delivery then Picard does some lovely high quality frozen meals that would be really easy. I realise you have limited space but if you have the lasagne the first night, as it's bulky, then you could also buy some of the gnocchi and a paella, as they come in bags, all delicious and a good size portion, plenty for 3.
The problem with tins and jars is that they are hard to open. These ready meals are easy and made of good quality ingredients.
picard-roast-vegetable-lasagne
picard-gnocchi-with-tomatoes-mozzarella
picard-paella-alla-valenciana
How about a stir fry? Ready chopped veg, chopped chicken, microwave rice. The 6 year old could perhaps help stir it.

Is there anywhere you could put an additional freezer? Like garage etc? They are often given away on our local FB pages.

Frozen chopped veg is brilliant. Chopped onions, peppers etc.

If you would normally chop fruit for them then you can also get mixed bags (I avoid summer fruits as the cranberries are too tart). Great for putting in porridge or Weetabix.

I'd make sure you have a really decent label or serving spoon so you can empty pans or slow cooker without having to lift too much. Things like draining pasta would be tricky.

Pre sliced rolls like the Warburton's packets, ready sliced or grated cheese.

Pasta sauce in tubs like you get in fridge or frozen from a big batch as opening jars would be hard.

An electric tin opener might be handy if anyone has one you can borrow.

Wow I don't even cook all this and I have two working arms! I would be getting the DC to have school lunches then they can make themselves sandwiches or cereal for dinner. Piece of fruit and a yoghurt. It's not forever.

When I broke my dominant hand, opening jars was a nightmare. Tins with a ring pull were manageable, tins needing a tin opener were not.
It might not be the cheapest or best, but you might need to rely on things that come in cardboard or plastic packaging. At the least, don't buy loads of jars/cans without checking whether you can actually open them...

Get a kuhn rikon pull chopper these are really good & dc could help use it with supervision.
Have you got a blender with a grater attachment?
Spag bol with frozen mince as fresh can be stuck in a block a bit.

Either a jar sauce or

• chop bag and freeze onion/celery/carrot mixes now
• add prechopped pancetta eg sold in supermarket in little tubs
• tinned toms. Will you be able to open tins? If not - open now, decant into

sandwich bags etc & freeze.

Same approach for a curry.
Buy diced chicken.
For onion see above
Premake the dried spice blend now & store in a jar so you just tip some in with the chicken & onion
Tinned toms see above.

Create mini dump bags basically chop everything you would need for a casserole shove it in a portion bag then you can just add to the meat in the slow cooker

We have chicken in the airfryer a lot.
Thighs or legs go lovely and crispy or chicken breast fillets- easy enough to chuck in and throw some spice mixes on top.

Also you can use tongs to get stuff out of a pan of water if your worried about draining or a large holey spoon.

Filled pasta, carton of sauce with mini corn on the cobs or fine green beans.

packets of stir fry veg would be helpful.

go to a butchers and ask them to chop the meat for you that you want maybe if can’t buyit in a supermarket how you need it.

hope it goes well.

If you have Instagram there's an account that chops/prepares everything needed for a selection of meals places into freezer bags and freezes the whole lot...

Grabs a meal bag out previous evening to defrost and throws the contents into the slow cooker next morning.

I think you'll find it's easier than you are imagining. A few years ago I had to have my right hand screwed back together after a bad fall and it was in a huge foam cast for weeks. DD was 3 years old at the time. It was a bit of a faff getting her dressed and doing more physical jobs but it was doable and quite funny at times, she didn't wear anything with buttons for a few weeks and neither did I.

Food wise, we had lots of stuff that just went on a tray and got bunged in the oven.

• chicken drumsticks with oven chips and microwave veg
• pork chops with microwave rice or baked beans
• sausages and instant mash with microwave veg
• sausage/chicken thigh traybake - sausages, bag of sliced mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, bag of sliced onion, baby new potatoes. All in the tray together and bake till it's the right level of brown and crispy for your tastes.
• ready made lasagna, mac n cheese or pasta bake that comes in the foil container so it doesn't need to be decanted.

Breakfast was warburtons pancakes that just get microwaved for 30 seconds, or cereal, it's a bugger trying to butter toast one handed!

It's a really limited period of time in the grand scheme of things so if they eat loads of microwave meals or take aways then it doesn't matter, you'll get back on track soon enough.

When I broke my arm, getting hot trays or dishes out of the oven was a particular challenge. Before you are incapacitated, I would carefully train your children if reasonably sensible, to use oven mitts and to carefully put things in and out of the oven. Children of this age are carers for disabled parents, so they should generally be able to manage the basics.

You can buy packs of frozen pre chopped onion, carrot and celery mix - add to mince and tinned tomatoes for bolognese to go with jacket spuds or pasta, add beans and spices for chilli to serve with tortillas and grated cheese or frozen potato wedges.

Can you buy one of those mini chopper things, like a little food processor, for the veg and you should be able to do the rest with your non dominant hand?

I would try simple things like, bacon and beans, stir fry, baked potatoes, ready made quiche and chips, lentil dahl etc 😋

One of my go to meals for a lazy tea is a packet of marinated pork stir fry, packet of stir fry veg, some sauce and 2 packs of microwave brown rice.

Just fry the lot in one pan adding the rice at the end. I sometimes add a couple of eggs if I'm feeling fancy, it's bloody lovely for a no effort tea and no real prep or cleaning up after.

And if you have space it might be worth getting a small chest freezer (( undercoated fridge size )) ......that way you can prepare dump bags for the slowcooker.
They come up really cheaply on Facebook all the time.

Frozen peas, peppers, broccoli and sweetcorn simple ways to add veg in the microwave

Jacket or baby roasted spuds are much easier than any other carbs

Scrambled egg and toast

Cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, feta and garlic in a tube will be great for roasting with little potatoes

That feta and cherry tomato tiktok pasta would be easy